Here's to You, Zeb Pike

by Johanna Parkhurst

  Beth glances at Jack, who appears to be silently observing our conversation from the other side of the kitchen. “Dusty, the way they’re behaving doesn’t really seem out of the ordinary for siblings… that’s the way most brothers and sisters act.”

  “Dusty,” Jack suddenly interrupts from across the room, “I get the sense that Julia and Matt tried a little harder to watch their behavior in Colorado. When they knew they… had to.”

  What’s he talking about? Sure, Matt helped me take care of Julia, and sure I’d needed them to get along to make sure we never got caught—but does that mean they don’t really like each other, that it was all an act?

  “Dusty, I think the kids are just less afraid to act like themselves now,” Beth adds, as if she can read my thoughts. “I don’t think it’s that they feel any differently about each other than they used to.”

  I know what she’s trying to say—that the kids are more secure here; that’s why they can call each other names and be rude now. Because they don’t have to worry the way they used to.

  Why is that supposed to be a good thing? Why am I supposed to be happy that my brother and sister now have enough security to hate each other?

  I’m not. And I don’t want to be. I put my dish in the sink and take my ice pack up to my room, hoping a nap will somehow help any of this make sense.

  I’M PRETTY sure, based on the light coming through the curtains over my windows, that it’s late afternoon when someone knocks on my door and pulls me back into consciousness. “Whatisit?” I mutter sleepily.

  “Dusty, Emmitt dropped by to talk to Jack and you. Is it okay if I let him in?”

  I sit up instantly, all too aware that my hair is probably sticking up in fourteen different directions and I’m still wearing the same rumpled T-shirt I was wearing last night. Oh well. Not much use trying to do anything about it now—not if he’s already at the door. “Uh, sure,” I call back, trying to sound at least a little bit awake.

  Emmitt comes in and immediately closes the door behind him, and I can’t believe how excellent he looks for someone who went through the same thing I did last night. He’s in jeans and a polo, and his hair is actually washed and dried. He has a faint bruise across the bottom of his jaw, but that’s the absolute only clue that he wasn’t just hanging out and watching movies last night.

  “Hey, man. Sorry to wake you up.” He sits on the end of my bed, and I stretch, hoping to get myself a little more alert for whatever conversation we’re about to have.

  “No problem. It’s probably late anyway, huh? So, what’s up?”

  He glances around my nearly blank canvas of a room, concentrating on a University of Vermont pennant Beth must have hung there. “Not much. Talked to Aaron this morning. He’s, like, grounded for life, but I don’t think his parents are going to make him quit hockey.”

  “That’s good, I guess. You talk to Jack?” I can basically feel my eyes narrow when I say that.

  “Yeah, we’re cool. It’s like I told you. He knows how Rick is.” He brings his eyes back to me. “He seems a little pissed that you didn’t tell him Rick’s been after you since you got here.”

  I can’t keep the annoyance out of my voice. “He made that pretty clear last night.”

  Emmitt runs a hand through his hair, and it’s almost all I can do not jump across the bed to get closer to him. “Look, Dusty, I get why this is hard for you and all. I do. I really do. Just… give Jack a chance if you can, okay? He’s only upset because he wishes he could have helped you out.”

  Now, for the second time in twenty-four hours, I find myself getting pissed off with Emmitt. “Doesn’t sound like you understand.”

  Emmitt shrugs. “I know how complicated it is, and I really do understand why you feel the way you do too. Just trying to help you see things from both sides.” He sighs. “I didn’t really come here to talk about that anyway. Can we… can we talk about the other thing that happened last night?”

  The tone of his voice isn’t very encouraging. “Yeah, yeah. Of course we can.”

  Emmitt scoots up the bed a little closer to me, and I can feel his hot breath—which smells like wintergreen gum—on my cheek. “Dusty,” he says softly, “I really like you. A lot. I got the impression last night you like me too.”

  I snort. “Uh, yeah. Glad you noticed.”

  “I mean… I don’t know how many other guys you’ve kissed. That was actually only my second time.”

  I’m not sure what to say to that. For some reason, I don’t really want to tell him that was my first time kissing a guy—my first time kissing anybody ever, actually. Luckily for me, Emmitt keeps talking, and I never have to respond.

  “That kiss last night… it meant a lot. I think you and I… I think we’d be great together.”

  I have a moment of triumph. Eight or so quick seconds of it, actually. Then Emmitt goes back to talking.

  “But I don’t think we can be.”

  And then he keeps talking.

  “I mean, this is northern Vermont, Dusty. People just don’t get that kind of stuff here. I don’t know what it’s like in Colorado—I’ve heard it’s even worse, actually—but if people found out, that would be, like, the end for us. You think Rick hassles you now? You haven’t seen anything. I’d have to quit hockey. I don’t even know what Casey would say.”

  “So he doesn’t know. About you.” I say it really softly, because my voice doesn’t seem to be working all that properly.

  “No. He doesn’t. I almost told him, after I kissed a guy at hockey camp last summer. But I couldn’t, because I realized that I couldn’t… couldn’t be this. Couldn’t be what I want to be. Couldn’t be with who I want to be with.”

  He shakes his head. “I want to be, Dusty. I do. I just can’t be. I’m really sorry.”

  He stands up to leave, and I find that, once again, I don’t have anything to say.

  As he closes the door behind him, I sink back onto the bed, wondering what’s supposed to happen now. Do I accept that I couldn’t make it up the mountain and move on? Settle in for a life with Beth and Jack raising my brother and sister, while I hang out on the side? See Emmitt at my locker every day, eat lunch with him, walk to classes with him and Casey, and pretend forever that last night never happened?

  No. I don’t want any of that. I don’t want to be a wingman in a fake family. I don’t want to keep searching for a way to learn to be something I’m not.

  I realize that what Jack said last night was right—“This can’t keep happening, Dusty,” he’d said. For once, I totally agree with him. This can’t keep happening. Everything went wrong the moment I stepped on that stupid plane in Colorado Springs…. That’s the moment I need to undo.

  So that’s when I decide to do it.

  I decide to go back to Colorado Springs to find my mom. Not because I need her. I don’t. The kids don’t. We gave up on her years ago. But I am going to have to find her and get her to convince the courts that the kids and I should live with her again. We can go back to our old apartment, she can come and go as she pleases again, and everything can go back to the way it was. After all, Julia can’t get appendicitis twice, can she? I’ll go back to being so busy taking care of Matt and Jules that this stupid problem of who I like and who I don’t like won’t even matter anymore, just like it didn’t used to matter.

  I’ll get to be who I was again. I’ll get to go back to living a life I had pretty well conquered.

  JACK AND I continue our pattern of barely speaking for the whole next week. Jack has either forgiven me or just decided not to talk with me again about Halloween, because he’s still really friendly, and he still spends most of our car rides home asking me how my day was. I’m still not giving him much to work with. I’m technically grounded, but all that really means is that I can’t go to the skate park with Casey after school. If Jack has a late meeting, I have to sit in the library and do my homework. Nothing really changes with Emmitt, just like I thought it wouldn’t. We still hang out
at my locker, eat lunch together with Casey, walk to class together sometimes.

  Sometimes I catch him looking at me with that same intense gaze he had locked on me in the bedroom that night, but I don’t return it or even think much about it. Nothing can come from it, so what’s the point?

  The only silver lining of life is that Rick is nowhere to be found. According to the grapevine he’s serving some time in juvie. Apparently he violated the terms of his probation on Halloween night. I’m not crying over his absence.

  Still, that’s the only thing I have going for me right now. I know I need to make a move soon. So I make plans throughout that entire week. I ask Jack, in the truck one day, if there is any news about Mom. Jack tells me that the cops have arrested some of Dad’s friends for other things, but they haven’t found Dad yet. He also says Mom still hasn’t turned up, and she still isn’t answering the last cell phone number we had for her. (I actually already knew that—I’d tried it a few days ago.) I figured Dad would be hard to find. If he’s heard cops are looking for him, he can make himself invisible. But if Mom hasn’t appeared anywhere yet, who knows where she is?

  I decide my plan will be to get to our old apartment in Colorado and wait for her. I think she’ll have to turn up there at some point to get her stuff if it’s still there. If it’s not, I’ll start looking for her. If I find her, I can talk to her. Tell her what’s going on. We can go to the cops together and she can ask for a second chance. The kids and I can go back to living with her.

  The funny thing is that every time I refine this plan in my head, a little voice shouts That’ll never work—you know it’ll never work! Don’t be stupid! All the flaws in it jump out at me over and over again. Where will I stay? That apartment could have someone living in it for all I know. What will I eat? I barely have any money. And speaking of having no money, am I really about to hitchhike all the way to Colorado? But what choice do I have? I’ve given up just taking what life throws at me and going with it. For once, I’m making a move for something I want—my old life.

  My biggest worry is disappearing without saying anything to Matt and Julia. I have never been apart from them in their entire lives. The week after Halloween, it’s almost torture to look at them. I know I am leaving, and I can’t even tell them not to worry about me. What if they think this makes me just like our mom?

  There’s nothing I can do about that, so I try not to think about it too much. I figure I can call them along the way. I’m going to leave the cell phone Jack got me behind (I’m sure it’s tracked or something), but I’ll get calling cards and use pay phones or something.

  Then it’s the morning of the day I’ve decided to take off. Before school I dump all my books out of my backpack and fill it with a couple of shirts and underwear, warm gloves and hats, my huge winter jacket, as many granola bars and water bottles as I’ve managed to scrounge together, and all the money I have in the world. I shake my head at the scrawny amount. It’s terrible. I’m definitely looking at a lot of hitchhiking. At least my black eye is pretty much gone; that would have definitely scared some potential rides off.

  I plan to leave at lunchtime. Colby High is right near the highway, so it’ll be easier to catch a ride from there than anywhere else. Plus, if I disappear at lunch, it probably won’t get back to Jack that I’m gone until late in the afternoon. By that time, I’ll be long gone.

  As lunch period approaches, I start to get more apprehensive about this great plan of mine. What if something goes wrong? What if I can’t find Mom? What if I never see the kids again? The nerves must show, because when Casey meets me at my locker between third and fourth period, he asks, “Dude, what’s eatin’ you?”

  I know I shouldn’t tell anyone, but I need to. I slam my locker shut hard. “Look, can you keep a secret?” I can feel myself start giving him Jack’s “teacher” look, and his face contorts. He nods, though.

  “Sure, man. You know I’ve got you.”

  “You can’t tell anyone, Case. Not even Emmitt. And no way can you tell my uncle.”

  Casey, surprisingly, puts out his pinkie. “I never break a pinkie swear, Dust.” His face is strikingly serious for someone using a gesture mainly held sacred by kindergartners.

  “Well… okay.” I hook pinkies with him. “I’m leaving, hitching out of here at lunch. I’m going to find my Mom.”

  “Whoa, that’s pretty intense,” hisses Casey, pulling his hand back. “Where are you going to go?”

  “The Springs. She’ll have to go back there eventually.”

  “You got any money?”

  Casey’s question startles me. “I don’t know. Some.”

  Casey looks around the bustling hallway in every direction. The warning bell rings, and as crowds of kids around us start to pour in different directions, he reaches for his wallet and grabs out some bills. “Here, man. You might need this.”

  I momentarily flash to the time Race gave me money in the hospital to go find my dad. “Case, I don’t know if I can take this,” I murmur. At the same time, I know I want to. This is enough for at least some bus fare and food along the way. It’ll make the trip ten times easier.

  “Who cares?” Casey waves me off. “It’s just money. But listen,” he adds, leaning closer to me, “don’t try too hard to find her, okay? Then you’d have to leave, and Emmitt and I really like having you around.” With that, he disappears down the hallway, and I decide this is a better moment than lunch to make a good, clean exit.

  I hike up yet another long, brown hill of Vermont to the highway and quickly catch a ride south to Burlington. The woman who picks me up is decent. She’s a nurse at the hospital there. She says she always picks up hitchhiking kids because she used to do it herself. She jokes with me a lot of the way and doesn’t ask any questions about why I’m not in school. Man, I think, if things keep going like this, this trip will be a breeze.

  She drops me off at the bus station in Burlington, and I reluctantly part ways with a large chunk of Casey’s money to purchase a bus ticket to New York City. It’s as far as I can get without going completely broke, and New York seems like it would be a good place to look for ways to head west. More people, more rides, right?

  I eat some granola bars on the long bus ride and try to ignore the hunger pains in my stomach that catch me off guard when the guy next to me launches into a huge ham and turkey sandwich. It’s a long ride, and I eventually nod off.

  I wake up when the driver announces that we are heading into Port Authority Bus Station, New York City. Too late to go back now, I think, as I exit the bus and head into an old, dingy tunnel of the station.

  I think it’s important to mention here that the first time my mom and dad both disappeared at once, I never cried. Matt and Julia were really young then, and tough to take care of, and I was really young too, but I never once let myself lose it. I just found food for them and got them to daycare and school, and I never let them see how scared I was. But now I’m alone in the biggest city in the world (well, I’m not totally sure of that, but it sure feels like the biggest city in the world), and I am still too close to Jack and Beth’s to call my brother and sister and tell them I’m okay. I’ve never been so lonely in my life. It takes everything I have to suck it up and head into the brighter lights of the station itself.

  I decide that ignoring the disgusting bus bathroom all the way down here means a trip to the restroom is in immediate order. I head inside a long, narrow men’s room and am right in the middle of doing my business when I look down and realize the backpack I set down next to me has disappeared.

  I take a few deep breaths so I don’t pass out. Great. Great great great. I’ve been stupid enough to put everything I had with me into that backpack—my wallet, all the money Casey gave me. Everything.

  So much for thinking a boy from Colorado Springs could survive in the big city.

  “Hey!” I yell out, panic taking over my voice. “Hey! Who grabbed my backpack? Who took it?” People in the huge restroom stare at me,
confused, and it occurs to me that whoever jacked my bag is probably long gone. It also occurs to me that if I keep yelling like this, I’m going to attract the attention of a lot of strange adults, and that’s the last thing I need right now.

  I practically race out of the restroom to look around, but I’m immediately engulfed in a crowd of people, and there is definitely no one in that crowd standing around holding my backpack. I slink over to a nearby chair and sit, because I have absolutely no idea what else to do.

  I start feeling around the pockets of the coat I’m wearing, just to see what assets I still have. Nothing. I feel around my jean pockets. No money, not even any change.

  Okay, this is probably the point where Zeb turned back and started to hike down the mountain. But I’m not Zeb, and I haven’t done enough research yet to see if that whole “turning around” thing was even his idea. So I decide I’m not going to let this stop me. I mean, it’s not like I had a whole lot of money to begin with anyway.

  I venture out of the bus station into bright lights. And I mean bright. I’ve spent my entire life in a small city and a very small town, and neither one has really prepared me for how many lights there would be here.

  Or how many people.

  They’re everywhere. I start heading right (it’s a 50/50 shot, right?), and I’m immediately in the middle of and/or in the way of about three hundred people. Again, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it sure feels that way.

  I don’t know how long I walk, entranced by the tall buildings and lit billboards around me, before I hear, “Hey man, you got any money?”

  Here’s the thing: it’s not like I’ve never seen a homeless person before. Check out Acacia Park in Colorado Springs sometime; it’s basically a shelter. It’s just that I’ve never seen quite this many in one place.

  There are probably thirty people homeless people just sitting around. Some are wrapped up in newspapers, and one or two have filled shopping carts next to them. Most look older, even though I don’t think they are all that old. One woman’s face is lined like she’s fifty or sixty, but her eyes tell me she might not be more than thirty.